Comcast's Self-Serve Playbook

4/09/2012 12:01 AM Eastern

By: By Todd Spangler

Comcast wants to help its customer-service ranking by letting subscribers help themselves.

Over the past several months, the operator hasadded several new features to its Customer Centralportal that give customers new ways to retrieveinformation or manage their accounts — withouthaving to pick up the phone. Recently introducedself-service functions include a service “health status”indicator, appointment-management capabilitiesand order-confi rmation email.

“There has been a big investment from our perspectiveto build out our self-service tools, whichcomes back to this mantra of respecting our customers’time,” Comcast senior vice president ofcustomer experience Tom Karinshak said.

Some tasks still require speaking with a human.For example, making a service appointmentrequires a phone call to Comcast “because wewant to make sure the truck roll will fix whatevertheir issue is,” Karinshak said. But once a visit isscheduled, subscribers can cancel or reschedule itthemselves online.

Interestingly, one of the most popular features onComcast’s customer-help site is a code-fi nder toolfor remote controls, which has beenaccessed more than 1 million timessince it debuted last summer.

As for future enhancements, Karinshaksaid Comcast is developinga knowledge-management systemto provide easier access to info onresolving common issues. That initially will be for customer-service representatives but,eventually, it will also be made available to customers, he said.

“We want to give customers choice and control about how they work with us,”Karinshak said.